At a press conference held by the National Health Commission on December 10, Xia Gang, director of the Department of Health and Immunization of the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, said that even if you have recently had cold symptoms, it is recommended to get the flu vaccine as soon as possible after recovery, especially for key groups such as the elderly, as influenza vaccination can reduce infection and reduce the risk of severe disease and death.
If you have already developed flu-like symptoms and have recovered on your own without a diagnosis, it is recommended to continue receiving the flu vaccine. There are two main reasons for this:
First, the symptoms of respiratory tract infection are not specific, and flu-like symptoms such as fever and headache may occur in a variety of pathogenic infections. However, if you have these symptoms, you are not necessarily infected with the influenza virus, but you may also be infected with other pathogens, the most common being the common cold.
Second, there are multiple types and subtypes of influenza viruses that can cause epidemics, for example, there are types A and B, and there are subtypes such as H1N1 and H3N2 in subtypes.
Influenza vaccines, on the other hand, are multivalent vaccines that cover many different types and subtypes, usually trivalent and quadrivalent. If you are vaccinated after infection with a certain type of influenza (e.g. A), the components of other types of influenza (e.g. B) still play a role in preventing that type of influenza. In addition, the same epidemic season is usually dominated by different types and subtypes, such as the current H3N2 subtype, followed by influenza B. In the past, there have been cases in the same epidemic season, where the dominant strains in the epidemic gradually changed from one type to another. (Wu Xingru).